You have metrics for so much of your brand. KPI’s (Key Performance Indicators) for goals and sub-goals. And for many things you do, there is a clear and distinct way to find out the ROI (return on investment). But then there’s your video content… 🧐
83% of businesses use video analytics to track their success. But video doesn’t have just 1 metric to watch. So what metrics are you using to measure your video content’s success? Today, let’s explore that discussion.
Ways to Measure
Video interaction has several key indicators. Which you choose to measure your video campaign success will differ depending on your overarching goals. Here are some for consideration.
Engagement
Engagement for video is “the percentage of impressions that have resulted in some form of engagement” – from “How to Measure & Calculate…”
Impressions can simply come from overall views, but a more telling set of criteria would be likes, shares, and comments. Of these, comments and shares are generally seen as the most valuable by marketers.
But be sure to not get lost in the “vanity of views”. Meaning, your video may go viral and garner thousands of views but if none of those viewers are in your target audience, there will be no follow-through on their part to grow your business. This leads us to conversion rate.
Conversion Rate
How many viewers of your videos are converting into sales and leads? This is conversion rate.
For example, videos on landing pages or product pages with CTA’s (Calls to Action) like a “Buy Now” or “Schedule a Call” could be measured based on conversion rate.
Another process you could use for seeing how important the video was in the conversion rate would be this. Create 2 identical landing pages (but one without video, and one with video) and see the difference in conversion rate. This is called A/B testing.
Traffic
If your videos have links to your site or landing pages, how many visits did it garner? Using a service like Google Analytics will help you see this statistic.
Watch Time/Watch Percentage
Did your video amass views that stayed beyond the mandatory 5 seconds of a pre-roll paid ad on YouTube? How many of your videos were watched through completely? When do people tend to fall off?
Answers to questions like these are very helpful. They can aid you in knowing the success or failure of a campaign. But they can also tell you crucial factors such as when video content and topics become no longer interesting to your audience. Consider video length, for starters. TikTok, for example, serves short-form, vertical video very well. Whereas, YouTube may be a better place to host your longer, in-depth video content.
Understanding factors like these can help with future video making/content creation plans.
Impressions
Many veer away from letting mere impressions speak to their success. This is because impressions don’t tell us anymore than, simply, how many times our content was seen (regardless of interaction beyond that).
For example, if the same person saw your video 4 times, it would count as 4 impressions. “Unique impressions” would be more helpful criteria in this case.
All this to say, impressions still can be insightful for a big picture outlook on a campaign.
Click-through rate (CTR)
Google states that: CTR is the number of clicks that your ad receives divided by the number of times your ad is shown: clicks ÷ impressions = CTR.
A high CTR is obviously great, but don’t let it stop there. Conversion rate should go hand in hand with this. If people are clicking on your video then not converting at the landing page, keep working!
Maybe a video on the landing page too?
Social shares
Not much speaks like a share on social media of your work or content. It says “this is really good!” or “really valuable stuff!” And people don’t share just any content easily. So keeping an eye on this metric says a lot about love and value of your brand.
Return on ad spend (ROAS)
Math time. How much revenue came in from a campaign minus the amount spent on that campaign. Pretty straightforward, but not always the easiest figure to find. This is largely due to not always knowing where leads and sales come from. But building analytics into your campaigns and implementing surveys for customers and prospects (asking how they found you for instance) can help in this endeavor.
For more on ROAS, we found this article pretty helpful.
CRMs and Other Analytics Platforms
Having a solid CRM (customer relationship management) is helpful to your video marketing growth. There are numerous companies that provide this service, and will help with tracking your video analytics. Some focus on overall marketing analytics whereas others, such as this, focus specifically towards your videos.
Be mindful when selecting, though, as some are more thorough than others. For example, one CRM we once worked with had a good tracking system in place but lacked fundamental posting options, limiting our ultimate success. So do your research before signing up, and know your CRM’s strengths/weaknesses.
Social media platforms, of course, have their own analytics pages. These are great for general overview on views and such, but cannot necessarily give you specifics as to who viewed, and then followed through. Decide what system is best for you and your brand. The important thing is that you have one in place.
Just remember, however you determine success, once you have the data, make sure to ask the next crucial question. That is: “How can we continue to improve our video and it’s output to get results more consistently and exponentially?”